L. Ron Hubbard in Paris, circa 1953.

There are only two tests of a life well-lived, L. Ron Hubbard once remarked. Did one do as one intended, and were people glad one lived. In testament to the first stands the full body of his life’s work, more than 156 million works of both fiction and non-fiction, including the more than 5,000 writings and 3,000 tape recorded lectures of Dianetics and Scientology. In evidence of the second are the tens of millions of individuals whose lives have been demonstrably bettered because he lived. They are the more than 3 million children now reading because of L. Ron Hubbard’s educational discoveries; they are the millions of men and women freed from substance abuse through L. Ron Hubbard’s breakthroughs in drug rehabilitation; they are the more than 61 million who have been touched by his nonreligious moral code; and they are the many millions more who hold his work to be the spiritual cornerstone of their lives.

Although best known for Dianetics and Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard cannot be so simply categorised. If nothing else, his life was too varied, his influence too broad. There are Bantu tribesmen in Southern Africa, for example, who know nothing of Dianetics and Scientology, but they know L. Ron Hubbard the educator. Likewise, there are factory workers in Albania who know him only for his administrative discoveries, children in China who know him only as the author of their moral code, and readers in a dozen languages who know him only for his novels. So, no, L. Ron Hubbard is not an easy man to categorise and certainly does not fit popular misconceptions of “religious founder” as an aloof and contemplative figure. Yet the more one comes to know this man and his achievements, the more one comes to realise he was precisely the sort of person to have brought us Scientology — the only major religion to have been founded in the 20th century.

What Scientology offers is what one would expect from a man such as L. Ron Hubbard. For not only does it provide a fully unique approach to our most fundamental questions — Who are we? From where did we come and what is our destiny? — but it further provides an equally unique technology for greater spiritual awareness. So how would we expect to characterise the founder of such a religion? Clearly, he would have to be larger than life, attracted to people, liked by people, dynamic, charismatic and immensely capable in dozens of fields — all exactly L. Ron Hubbard.

“I like to help others and count it as my greatest pleasure in life to see a person free himself of the shadows which darken his days.” — L. Ron Hubbard

The fact is, if Mr. Hubbard had stopped after only one of his many accomplishments he would still be celebrated today. With such monumental bestsellers to his credit as Battlefield Earth, Fear and the Mission Earth series, Mr. Hubbard is one of the most widely read authors of all time. Forty of his novels have appeared on bestseller lists and have earned some of the world’s most prestigious literary awards. He has been genuinely described as “one of the most prolific and influential writers of the twentieth century.”

His earlier accomplishments are similarly impressive. As a barnstorming aviator through the 1930s, he was known as “Flash” and broke local records for sustained glider flight. As a leader of expeditions, he is credited with conducting the first complete Puerto Rican mineralogical survey under United States protectorship and his navigational annotations still influence the maritime guides for British Columbia. And as a member of the world-renowned Explorers Club, which included such luminaries as Admiral Byrd and Sir Edmund Hillary, he carried the organisation’s flag on three separate expeditions. A lifelong photographer, his works have been displayed in galleries on two continents, with the definitive exhibition of his photographs still drawing tens of thousands every year.

Among other avenues of research, Mr. Hubbard developed and codified an administrative technology that is currently utilised by tens of thousands of organisations worldwide, including multinational corporations, charitable bodies, political parties, schools, youth clubs and thousands of small businesses.